If you would like to speed up the process of making the soup, below is a method that will allow you to easily shave off 10 to 15 minutes of the cooking time for the soup. To have your dinner ready faster, microwave your potatoes before adding them to your soup. To do this you will add your prepared potatoes into a microwavable bowl, cover them entirely with water, place them into the microwave for 2 minutes. After the 2 minutes has passed check on your potatoes to see if they are soft. If not, microwave until they are soft when you insert a fork. Drain the liquid from your potatoes, then pour into your soup mixture. Doing this allows you to skip cooking the potatoes on your stovetop. All that’s left is to simply bring your entire soup to a simmer once all your ingredients are added. Then you can serve and enjoy!